This is the task for the day 29 and this is what in my opinion is best way to express our gratitude to those who have linked to us.

Darren say if we do this we may start a good relationship. If not we may ensure a return visit from that person.

In my opinion, it’s a perfect way to say thank you from our heart to those who have cared to link to us.

Am I going to do it ? Yes. I’ll send the emails today.

This is the task for day 28 of the blogging challenge in which I am participating.

The mission statement of my blog is ‘Life and times in India: views of an Indian Blogger’. This blog is (and will be ) mainly a collection of my thoughts on various issues related to India. I say ‘mainly’ because this blog is not related to India only. It’s the blog of a guy who lives in India and do a number of activities in his life. He works on a full day job, owns and manages three websites, write & read a lot, has a family to support and ….well the list is long. In all these activities, many thoughts keep coming into his mind. This blog is a small attempt on his part to note down those thoughts.

‘Why do I exist?’ I don’t know. God has been kind to me that I still exist in India where growing risk of terrorism has made life of all of us quite vulnerable. In any case, since I exists so here I am J

Why I blog ? Well it’s difficult to say exactly why I blog. I l like writing and I love this medium. Blogging is a journey full of surprise. You never know how many new things you’ll learn and how many friends you’ll make. My blog is my small voice in this world. If I can make a difference with my writing, no matter how small it is, I’ll be happy. Further, my blog is a way to keep my English skills updated. Since I live in a non-english speaking environment (Hindi to be precise), I still have a long way to go before attaining perfection in this language.

Ok I am back after a 4 days hiatus. I’ll go straight to the tasks :

Task for day 23 : Go on a Dead Link Hunt

Here what Darren has advised :

What happens when one of the blogs that you’re linking to is retired, is deleted, changes it’s link structure, moves etc? The link is a dead one (also known as Link Rot) and can cost your blog on two fronts:

Readability – clicking on a dead link can mean your readers can end up on error pages or being redirected to other irrelevant content to the one they were expected to get to. This can lead to reader frustration or giving the impression that your blog is old and/or out of touch.

SEO – I’m not sure of the technicalities of it or what the latest research shows but from what I can tell a dead link is not looked upon favorably by search engines and you run the risk of penalties.

My comment: Noted. This task is not for me at the moment. There are so few links on my blog. I checked them and most of them are working fine.

Task for day 24 : Do a Search Engine Optimization Audit on Your Blog

Darren wants us to do a search engine audit. He pointed me towards this post of his:

Search-engine-optimization-for-blogs/

I must say it’s an excellent post and covers almost all topics about SEO. I think I am already following most of the tips given in this posts. As of now my priority is to create content for my blog (which unfortunately I am not able to do properly). In any case it’s a good post with lots of tips. I shall be using many of the tips mentioned there at the appropriate time.

Task for day 25 : Go Shopping and Improve Your Blog

What a task it is It requires me to stay away from my computer, go to market, just wander about, observe everything (particularly people, shoppers, buyers and salesman). Then sit somewhere and think about what I observed and to draw some lessons from it. Any lesson which I can apply to my blogging. Interesting ! Isn’t it

Well it’s a very interesting task but in my opinion Darren wants us to look for some ideas beyond the online world. To find something interesting in the real off line world and to use it in our online experience of blogging.

Well this is what most successful bloggers do. Real ideas are in the real world. We all have to go outside for great ideas. There are plenty of them in the outside.

What I did about this task? Honestly nothing . I read newspapers, watch television and meet people in my office. That give me enough ideas for blogging and I don’t feel any need to go to any shopping mall for this. Well that’s my way of doing things. I am never short of ideas. Always it’s lack of time which prevents me from implementing them.

Task for day 26 : Link up to a Competitor

Darren says :

To link to another blog in your niche – a ‘competitor’.

While linking to other blogs in your niche might seem a little bizarre to some I’ve seen it’s power many times in my own blogging and that of others. Outbound links Matter!

So here’s the task – find a way to link up to at least one other blog in your niche.

My comments : In my niche nobody is my competitor. Yes. I am not selling anything. All bloggers who have an India centric blogs are my friends. So I’ll link some of my friends here. I’ll did a research on this topic and post my update. Task completed partially

Task for day 27 : Find a Sponsor for Your Blog

Darren says :

You might not think that your blog is big enough to find sponsors (and you might be right) but even if you’re unsuccessful in finding one you will hopefully learn a thing or two about finding sponsors and might even start a relationship that could be fruitful at some point in the future.

Getting a sponsor for your blog (or selling an advertising spot directly without relying upon an ad network like AdSense) is a great thing for numerous reasons – not the least of which is that you cut out the middleman and don’t have to share the revenue with a company like Google!

It’s not always easy to land a sponsor – but it’s a skill that bloggers wanting to make money from their blogs should learn – even in the early days.

Darren has also referred us to two of his earlier posts in which he has written about this topic in details here & here.

Well to find a sponsor is a really attractive task and can help us monetize full potential of our blog. I have noted this great advise of Darren for implementing the same in future.

In my opinion, traffic is the greatest motivator for advertisers to come. At present, I don’t have this edge. I am working on it and I hope in future I’ll have that edge of a great traffic.

So here I completed my tasks for 5 days in one go. This blogging challenge is coming to an end and to be honest I am getting a bit emotional. I loved this challenge. It taught me so many things: like the power of relationship, the power of group learning, the power of persistence…and so on. I’ll miss this challenge. I hope to write a detailed post about what I learned in this entire one month.

Ok I am back despite a negative post I wrote yesterday where I expressed my apprehension that I might not be able to post regularly. I am very lucky that I am getting active support of other participants of blogging challenge. In fact, I found that most of us are on the same boat. Doing our day job, managing other family affairs and in between finding time for blogging. Despite all these ups and down, I am enjoying this contest fully. So here is my tasks for day 19, 20, 21 & 22 :

Day 19 : Respond to Comments On Your Blog

Darren’s advice:

One of the most basic skills that any blogger should spend time working on from the very early days is responding to comments on your blog – and that’s today’s task in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project.

While this is one of the simplest acts that a blogger can do (I almost didn’t publish this because it’s so basic) it is something that can have a real impact upon your readers.

Despite this – it’s often one of the things that slips for many bloggers over time as a result of a growing blog and/or the busyness of life. I’m as guilty of this as anyone and have been attempting to put more time aside in the last couple of weeks to comment more on my blogs (it’s a daily struggle).

How true ! What Darren has pointed out is something we all bloggers have to accept. Owing to the ‘busyness’ of life and some other factors like a growing blog, we often neglect (or sometimes forget) to respond to the comments on our blog. I am guilty of this. I know that in this blogging challenge, many participants are not only reading my posts, they are making their valuable comments also. However, I must confess that I have not reciprocated the same way. I feel a bit embarrassed when I say this. Now, I must make a promise to myself :that I shall contact every commentator of my blog; either my emailing him/her or by making a comment in his/her blog. It’s a promise.

Task for day 20 : Run a Reader Survey on Your Blog

This tasks involves asking feedback from my readers about my blog. There are two main reasons for it : (1) For Blog improvement; and (2) For Reader’s participation

Well this is a task I am reserving for future. First of all I should develop my blog into a popular one. It’s only after that I should run a reader survey. I think it’s not of much use at this time. Task completed

Task for day 21 : Make a reader famous

This is a tip to build relationship with your readers and supporting them. Mentioning something about your readers, about their blog, their life or about any comment on their blog will not only help your reader, it will also help you in the long run.

When I think about doing this task a question popped up in my mind : Am I really capable of making a reader famous ?

Well the answer at this point is no. Darren can make any blogger famous by mentioning him or about his blog on his famous blog. But a blogger who has just started out can’t claim to have such edge in his blog. So what should he do ? In my opinion, the best way is to write a post about your regular readers and to write about why you liked them and their blog. It may be a little gesture on your part and may not help them much, But in the ultimate analysis it’s better than doing nothing for them.

Soon I shall write a post exclusively for my readers and a majority of them will be other participant of blogging challenge.

Task for day 22 : Catch New Readers Up On The Basics of Your Blog

Here is what Darren has said :

Sometimes after you’ve been blogging on your blog for a while it’s easy to forget that not all of your readers have been reading your blog since you started. While you’re familiar with every aspect of your blog and how to use it – your more recent loyal readers may not.

One way to catch new readers up on what your blog is all about and how to use it most effectively is simply to write a post telling them.

Ok I have noted this tip. Let me make this blog famous (or to say : let me blog for a while) and then I’ll make my blog user friendly for new users. As of now, this blog is very new and doesn’t have much to offer to readers. First let me make it content rich and, thereafter, I’ll apply this tip. Task completed

Yes. I am lagging in this blogging challenge which is a great opportunity to improve my blog. I have become too busy in my working and domestic life that it has become almost impossible to find some quality time for blogging or for any online activity. Up to now, my wife (along with our three-months old son) was at her parent’s house. So I was getting some spare time at home for blogging. Now she has returned home and I can’t expect to find enough free time anymore. Blogging on this site has become a sort of passion for me. However, I have my responsibilities as a family man and I just can’t ignore them.

So..it seems I’ll not be able to participate in this contest actively. Or to say…with the same enthusiasm which I had till now….

I got a comment from Darren himself for this post. He praised my work and wish me all the best. Yet I could not reply to his post

Well I am not saying a goodbye to this challenge. I’ll do all I can to be regular in this contest. It’s not about winning the challenge..it’s about learning lots of things and making some very good friends…

So this is all for today..Hope my regular readers (I hope you are one of them) will bear with me. Bye & goodnight It’s 11.39 PM in Delhi, India.

Ok ! As you may be aware I am taking part in a blogging challenge (which is actually is Group writing project) conducted by Darren Rowse from Problogger. Here is views/actions on tasks for day 16, 17 & 18.

Task for Day 16 : Create a Heatmap of Where Readers Click on Your Blog.

This task is related to understand the activities of your visitors in detail while they are on your website/Blog. It actually includes using a very useful service by the name ‘CrazyEgg’ which tracks where readers of your blog click when surfing on your blog. It creates a sort of heatmap of the results.

My comments/action: I installed the script on two of my pages. I am using a free version of this service which allows tracking of only 4 pages. The results are very interesting. See these screen shots. Notice the circular Button in blue, green and red.

These results told me that visitors are searching my blog, they want to know ‘about’ me, they want to see the picture in detail and they are commenting on my posts ! wonderful ! It’s almost amazing to see so much detailed activity. This crazy Egg is a really cool thing to track your visitors activities.

Once my blog starts attracting substantial numbers of visitors, I’ll try the paid version of this service to optimize my blog. It’s a great tool .Thanks to Darren.

Task for Day 17 : Run a StumbleUpon Advertising Campaign For Your Blog.

Ok this task wants me to run a StumbleUpon Advertising Campaign for my blog. It’ll costs me $5. Well though this is a very small amount, I think at this initial stage of my blog, running this campaign is not worth while. There is so little content on my blog that even if this campaign generates 100 unique visits, very few of them will stay at my blog. May be after sometime (a few months later) I run this campaign. So task completed for now.

Task for Day 18 : Create a Sneeze Page and Propel Readers Deep Within Your Blog.

This one is interesting. Here Darren has pointed towards a problem which most of the bloggers face. As we keep posting more and more articles on our blog, slowly we create a sort of database of articles. However, it is difficult for new visitors of our blog to find a complete list of all these articles. The challenge is how to propel readers towards some of the best posts in your archives. They can only see a list of our recent 10 posts or so. The archives page also dose not offer much help. This problem can be sorted out by creating a post or page exclusively for a list of all the articles of our blog. Further, if we can prepare this list category wise or topic wise then it will be very helpful for our readers.

As of now my blog has very articles. However, after sometime I’ll create a post where I’ll list my entire articles category wise. I’ll also showcase my best (I mean popular) articles in the sidebar so that they can be read by visitors.

Here one point I would like to mention is that I am not following Darren’s advice word-by-word. As my blog is comparatively new, I can’t implement all tips suggested by him. Doing so will not help my blog. However, I am noting all his tips and I know that, in the long run, I shall definitely implement them.

Ok I am back after some very busy days. I am yet to do tasks for three days. Let me check what are they :

Day 13 – Search for an Affiliate Program that Fits Your Blog

As of now I am not intend to sell anything on my blog. This blog is about my opinion on various things in life in India and abroad. The opinions will be as varied as the world itself. So no particular product comes in my mind. However, displaying Google Adsense on my blog is a good option. Just by adding one piece of code, various ads relevant to my site will appear on this site. Whenever, anybody clicks on these ads, I get some cents which accumulated into dollar. In my opinion for most of the bloggers who want to monetize their blog, Google Adsense should be the first thing to join. Joining is free, getting approval is fast and adding the code is a breeze. I am using this program on two of my other sides also. Though I don’t earn huge some of money both of my sites have become self-sufficient and are generating their maintenance costs. I think even if you have a personal blog or any non-profit blog, you can make it self-sufficient by using Google Adsense on it. I have started Google Adsense on my blog and if you also want to join you can sign up here

So task completed for the day 13.

Day 14 – Analyze Your Blog’s Competition

Darren has pointed that the concept is to subscribe and read 10 blogs in your niche for a week then do a thorough analysis on them. Honestly I feel this is not an important task at least in my niche. When I decided to start this blog, my aim was to make it popular but not to outperform the popularity of any other blog. I know if I write good quality content, the blog will become popular. When I see blogs about India, I find that most of them have their original thoughts which attracts visitors to them. Why should I analyze what other people are writing and to let them influence my writing ? Yes, I’ll check these blogs to know what kind of technologies they are using, what kind of user friendly gazette they are having on their blog etc… And for this I don’t think I need to check the blogs of my competitors. I can do this by analyzing any successful blog. However, some of you may be in some very specific niche (as against my niche about India which is very broad). In that case, analyzing other blogs of your competition may be a good idea. As for me, I neither have time nor the need to do this. So task completed

Day 15 : – Stickify Your Blog

What does that mean ? Here what Darren has written:

Today’s task in the 31 Day Project is to ’stickify your blog’.

This week’s video post is based upon a tip I mentioned in a recent podcast interview with Yaro and revolves around a technique that I’ve recently used to help convert one off and first time visitors to my blog into RSS subscribers.

It revolves around identifying key points where traffic is entering your blog and then optimizing those points for stickiness either by providing means for subscribing via RSS or email or by driving people deeper into your blog.

As of now TV is on and my family is watching their favorite soap. It’s not possible to ask them to reduce the volume. So I am not going to listen that podcast (which in my opinion is a sales pitch to join a blogging tutorial ). Darren is a clever guy. He is very cleverly directing us (the participants ) into buying a product he endorse. Well he can do this as he has that edge (status of an A-List Blogger).

This blogging challenge is steadily becoming too detailed and is taking most of my blogging time. For long I have not posted any post of India !.

Let’s be serious and take a serious view of what Darren want me to do. He wants me to Stickify my blog. In other words, it means I should do something to immediately grab the attention of my first time readers so that they subscribe to my RSS feed. I think it can be done even without listening Darre’s podcast. Here is what I’ll do.

Remember my post regarding most useful wordpress plugins. ? I’ll take help of two plug- ins to make it easy for my readers (including first time readers) to subscribe to my feed easily. I’ll use three plugins :

What would Seth Godin do & Subscribe Remind.

When I shall install these plugins, my blog will show Subscribe to RSS feed link in some very strategic positions. These positions will be :

(1) On the beginning of my every post (for first time readers). It’ll be displayed for three time.

(2) At the end of my every post. Every time for every reader.

By the time you’ll read this post, I will have activated two plugins. So you may see at the end of this post there is a reminder of subscribing to my RSS feed. Isn’t it a good way to remind my readers to subscribe to my RSS feeds ? Task completed

Hi friends,

Here is a list of 5 great articles on blogging. These are some of the most popular and influential articles on blogging written by some very successful Bloggers. I found them extremely useful as they are filled with numerous tips for Bloggers.

How to Make Money From Your Blog

Written by Steve Pavlina, who is one of the most influential bloggers in self-development niche. He started his blog in October, 2004 and within two years his incomes rose from $4.12/day to $1000/day. Read, in his own words, how he achieved this feat.

Is Professional Blogging A Sustainale Business Model?

An honest and hard look at the risk involved in being a Professional Business Blogger and why it’s not a sustainable Business Model in the long run. A must read for all those who wants to enter into the world of full-time blogging.

Blog to Riches : The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom.

This is a long six page article that presents the stark realities many successful bloggers are facing presently. After doing all that they can do many are finding to have hit a sort of glass ceiling in their niche. The entry of big media corporations into Blogging has somewhat sidelined the lone blogger. A very interesting article filled with lots of examples.

Tips for joining the A list

Some invaluable tips for increasing traffic and utilizing Technocrati for our advantage.

Interview with ProBlogger Darren Rowse

Read this inspiring interview of Darren where he shared various tips & ticks he has been using for promoting his Blogs. The interview was in two parts, however, I could not find the link for the second part on this site. If you know the link for the second part, kindly tell me.

Blogging in Formation – Lessons from a Goose

An informative article that describes in detail the importance of relationship in Blogging.

*******

I know many of you have already read these articles. If you have not, I strongly recommend you to read them as they contain a treasure of useful blogging tips.

Further, if you think there are some other great and influential articles which should find a place in this list, kindly tell about them by commenting here.

The task for day 1 2 i.e. for today is
“Introduce Yourself to Another Blogger”

This is what Darren has suggested :

Email or IM another blogger in your niche to introduce yourself and your blog. You don’t need to ask them to link to you or anything – the point isn’t to get any specific outcome other than to touch base and hopefully build a relationship.

This in my opinion is a very useful tip and extremely important for new bloggers like me. When you don’t have search engine to back you, the only way that remains is to build a personal network of friends.

I emailed two fellow bloggers today. Let us see what happen.

The task for day 11 i.e. for yesterday was

“Dig Into Your Blog’s Statistics”

I somehow missed this task yesterday. I shall do this now :

Here what’s Darren say and my views/action for that :

“Take some time out today to do a little analysis of your blog’s statistics. There is a wealth of information in them that can be incredibly useful.

Here’s a few metrics to dig into to start off with:

• Most Popular Posts – what posts are being read more than other posts? Knowing this is important for a couple of reasons. For starters it gives you a hint of what topics you could write more upon – but secondly it gives you some key pages on your site to optimize (ie think about how you can drive people from these posts deeper into your blog – I’ve got a video post on this for next week).

My Comment : My post popular post till date has been this one :

7 days have past since Blogger challenge started !

This post has been quite popular and has attracted more than 10 comments (highest for any of my posts) for the simple reason that this has been included in one of the post of 70 Reader Blogging Tips by Darren on his blog. To be honest, this post dose not give any tip to readers. I just sent it to Darren so as to inform him that I am too taking part in his blogging challenge. I was not expecting an inclusion. However, Darren decided to include this post in his link . It’s because of this post that my blog’s traffic rose to a whooping 50 visitors a day for two days !. Its not a very promising stat but it has at least resulted in an improved visibility for my blog.

After this post, I wrote two posts on blogging tips. One was Don’t be too personal in your blog and the other was Most essential plugins for your wordpress blog. These two posts are my two blolgging tips to blogger’s community till date. I submitted both of them to Darren. However, none of them has been published by him till now. Regarding the comments these posts have generated, the first one in which I wrote about how one should not be too personal in my blog has invited a mixed reaction from readers. Some beg to differ from this by stating that it’s a personal touch that makes a blog attractive to it’s reader. I can’t agree more on this. What I was trying to convey is that we should not be too personal in our blogging and our main focus should be the niche about which we blog.

My other post which is regarding most essential plugins for a WordPress blog has resulted into two positive comments. One person thanked me for compiling this list whereas the other person, who incidentally was author of one of the plugins I mentioned in the list (Trevor, who wrote Subscribe Remind plugin ) thanked me for including his plugin. I personally feel that his post on useful plugins for wordpress has been my best post till date as it took me many hours to compile the lists (which was based upon my personal use of these plugins and recommendation/experience of other users). However, I am quite amused that this post has attracted just two comments and almost negligible traffic.

The other suggestions which Darren has give is to check my Referral Stats, the questions being asked in search engine by readers to find my blog, what keywords are sending traffic and how many people are leaving the blog by reading just one post.

My comments : Apart from Darren’s link in his blog about 70 blogging tips (which include my post mentioned above) my website is getting traffic from Michele Martin’s wonderful Blog . The main reason for this is that I am one of the participant of The 31 Days to a Better Blog Challenge as a result of which my blog has got one permanent link on her blog. Apart from her website, I am getting traffic from the Blogs of other participants also. In my opinion this is an example of seasonal traffic which I am getting from these participants. Once this challenge is over there will be a decrease in this traffic unless I make some valuable bonds with these fellow bloggers.

As my blog is very new and there is not much content for readers, I am getting almost no referrals from Search Engines. I know I need to work hard for a long time on this blog to establish it properly. These things are what we known as ‘teething troubles’ of any new venture. I need to create good quality content for this blog in order to make it popular. I hope I shall be able to do this eventually.

I am also getting a little traffic from my other blog New tips for Stress-free Life where I posts useful articles related to productivity and other lifehacks tricks.

I am not much concerned about those readers who leave my Blog after reading just one post. This blog has so little content and so little traffic that it’s natural that people leave early. This will be a matter of concern for me after one year .At that time I shall see.

So here is my dig at my Blog’s traffic. To be honest, as of now I don’t care much about bringing traffic to this Blog. My main concern is to create qualitative, original & interesting content for my readers. Once I do this, traffic will not be a big problem.